Question

Does GOD judge us?

Swami Rama wrote in The Essence of Spiritual Life

“Sit down and quietly think about what you have done in your life, because in the end, during the period of transition, you will have to face yourself. What have you done that is satisfying? Have you done anything selfless – totally selfless? You go on doing your work and reaping the fruit, and then you hoard. In this way there can be no liberation.”

I think that this is THE only yardstick for GOD to judge.

Answers

Swami Nityamuktananda Saraswati, Stephen Parker (Stoma), Lalita Arya (Ammaji), Shi Hong, and Michael Smith have responded to this question.

Swami Nityamuktananda Saraswati

A God that judges… is a Christian concept and has nothing to do with Yoga (that is…. apologize – as far as I know!)

Life’s actions have consequences… and these consequences play out, whether we look at it as the play of karma, or simply as the flow of ever-changing energy.

Stephen Parker (Stoma)

The idea of a judgment or assessment of life after death is a common belief in many traditions. For example, it is a feature of the ancient Egyptian religion where Horus, as I recall, weighs the heart of the newly transitioned soul. There is a similar idea of judgment in Islam. In these traditions, it is a global look at the balance of virtuous and vicious action in the person’s life.

In our tradition this sort of reckoning is not a one-time event but proceeds according to how we deal with our karma, the mental impressions we carry of every thought, feeling, and action that we have made, moment by moment. At the end of the life of this body, as Patanjali explains, the impressions that have ripened to bear their fruit in the next life merge into a subtle pattern called karmashaya that guides the jiva through the transition from this body to the next. At the moment of passage from this body, if we are to be reborn, we will have awareness of 3 things: the species of the next incarnation, the length of that life, and the balance of pain and pleasure we will experience. Then in the bardo, as the Tibetans call it, we experience the fruits of the action in our past life, and to the extent that these impressions are bright or dark we experience a relative heaven or hell before we move towards the next birth. So in the yoga tradition (and the other Indian traditions as well), there is no one personality making some fateful decision about our eternal condition. We reap the fruits of our actions according to how we sowed them, which is a genuinely Christian idea. (That is, it came from Christ himself and not from the church.)

If we remain aware, witnessing from the buddhi, then we sever the ego’s self-identification with a given samsara or mental impression as it arises. We also change the balance of our impressions through the process of “thinning down the kleshas” (klesha-tanu-karana) described in the Yoga Sutras’ second chapter. We deliberately create brighter samskaras to balance the darker ones and that way we gradually bring more light to the total. So the theory of karma is of little use in explaining how we came to our current suffering. Its power lies in the ability to continuously create a better future.

Lalita Arya (Ammaji)

The word “judgment’ itself is so stressful to think about that meditators might want to stay far away from it. However, since it is a question, we have to deal with it.

A student who is enwrapped into the fold of our tradition is always under the spiritual and subtle umbrella of a Guide. When that student is sincere in his/her practices attention is focused on trying to refine that as much as possible and nothing else matters besides the ordinary waves of living, of course. What happened before, what is happening now, and what happens after – these are of no consequence if we are in pursuit of a ‘sattvic’ life…because irrespective of what ‘religion’ we follow, we as humans ‘think, speak and act’ and these have consequences that have bearing on us. If they are sattvic we need not worry about judgment. Of course, as we know “to err is human” and those consequences we have to suffer…as there is no need for anyone else to judge us for our thoughts, speech, and actions – that is besides the normal rules of living with legalities, rules of behavior, etc.

We are the final ones who decide how we want to live so as not to harm others in our thoughts, speech, and actions. When we are still in the infant and childhood stages of being trained into adulthood, we have parents or guardians who help us hopefully on that path that teaches us that we are responsible for our thoughts, speech, and action and that there will be consequences to US because we have created them…they train, teach, and guide, and when we become adults. Maybe they are no longer there and we seek more, if we are fortunate the Guide appears when we are ready – who tells us – Listen to what I have to say,  do not believe everything I say, go and Practice for yourselves and reap the fruits of those thoughts, words, and deed. You alone are responsible because you are the Thinker, Speaker, and Actor. So, go and sit, meditate, and understand yourself that you alone are responsible for these.

Much more may be said on this topic – like external compulsions, etc. But if you are a serious meditator you will find answers within yourself – eventually.

To end on a light note – If you believe in a god – HE/SHE is too busy creating to look at your faults, and if you don’t believe, well why worry?

From Shi Hong

Ammaji’s answer reminds me of a dialogue that Confucius had with one of his disciples:

Ji Lu, a disciple, once asked the master: “May one know how to serve the spirits of the dead?”

Master: “How can one serve the spirits if one cannot even serve the living beings?”

“May one then ask about death?”

“How can one know death when one has yet to know about life?”

Similarly, at the 2015 international yoga conference held in Beijing, Swami Veda, attending through video, was asked by the audience “Is there God?” (It is very interesting that this question still surfaced after 6 decades of communism. And I, sitting at the conference translating for him, was concerned that his answer might entail certain consequences if misinterpreted.) Swami Veda smiled and replied: “Is there God – why should you believe my answer? Go find out!”

From Michael Smith

“When you go against God, you are going against your own nature, the divine image in which God created you. When you go against that nature, you automatically punish yourself.” – Paramahansa Yogananda

Swami Veda explained how karma works in detail:

“There are certain laws that I call cosmic laws. To my mind cosmic laws are those laws that apply equally to all branches of knowledge. There are some laws that apply only to physics, some only to geometry perhaps, some only to medicine, some only to jet propulsion, some only to the study of water currents (which is called hydrology). But there are some laws that apply to all branches of knowledge. Listen to Newton’s third law of motion. Now this is not a law in physics alone, it is a cosmic law. For every action in one direction, there is a reaction in the opposite direction. Not just motion – any action-reaction. This applies to your going out canoeing. It applies to jet propulsion.  It applies to karma. For every action in one direction, there is a reaction in the opposite direction.”

“Now the karma system works on the basis of the subtle body. I get an evil thought and I go and blind someone. Now what have I done? I have no power to change his eye consciousness.  He will keep dreaming of forms for example. I can do nothing to his subtle body. I can do nothing to his memory. All I have done is to hit his gross body, his annamaya kosha, his physical sheath. But there should be a reaction in the opposite direction. When I blind someone by hitting them in the eye, I blind myself in my subtle body.  I negate my eye consciousness. My eyes will keep working for the time being, so long as the momentum of my previous karma lasts. This karma is that they should stay well for so long because my previous karma has determined that this man shall enjoy his eyes so long. But for the future I have established a negative curtain, I have established a block in the eye consciousness of my subtle body. Now recall what I said. A person dying gathers his whole karma, the sum total of his samskaras, and migrates to the next body. Reincarnates. Now whatever you have sown, that shall you reap. You cannot sow something and expect to reap something else. Somewhere the action-reaction must continue. The cause-effect chain must continue. Very well. Now I migrate with the eye socket in my subtle body, as it were, missing. I have put a block through my karma in this life, which comes to me in the form of the final experience of death when the curtain is being drawn and I am moving away, that determines three things for my next life. According to the yoga sutras of Patanjali, jati (the species in which I am born), ayus (the life span), and bhoga (the duration for which I shall stay in that body and the type of pain and pleasure I shall receive for the duration of my stay in that special body). Jati, again is the species in which I will be born, the type of body I will get, in other words, a whole body or a lame body or a blind body. (Gross body) Ayus, the life span, how long I shall stay in that body. Bhoga, the type of pain-pleasure experiences I will have while in that body.”

“So the force of my karma, the momentum of my karma, the negative blocks or the positive forces wrapping my inner being around take me through no space and no time to that womb where the ideal physical conditions are present. Where the ideal physical conditions are available. So a medical doctor says, “Why is this child congenitally blind? Well the genes of the father and the grandfather, and the chromosomes of the mother and the grandmother.” This is perfectly true. That explains how the body was formed. The physical science is concerned with the how of things. Philosophy is concerned with the why of things. “How” and “why” should not be confused. The physical doctor says perfectly correctly that this child’s body was formed by such and such genes or such and such conditions during pregnancy or such and such diet or whatever it is. Good formations, malformations.  Strong or weak. But that does not explain “why.” Why this person? And that “why” is the continuity of the chain of cause and effect, sowing and reaping. This subtle body now works, as it were, as a mold around which the physical body is built. So just as I say that all the earth, water, fire, air and space are within, so all pain and pleasures are within. It is from the storehouse of the anandamaya kosha that the right kind of pain and pleasure surface to meet the right kind of physical conditions.”

Editor’s Note

If you have any questions about your spiritual practice, you may write to the AHYMSIN Spiritual Committee at adhyatmasamiti@gmail.com.